Guest “Fracking A Bubba!” by David Middleton
Despite the worst efforts of the incontinent temporary occupant of the White House…
MARCH 11, 2024
United States produces more crude oil than any country, ever
Data source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, International Energy Statistics
The United States produced more crude oil than any nation at any time, according to our International Energy Statistics, for the past six years in a row. Crude oil production in the United States, including condensate, averaged 12.9 million barrels per day (b/d) in 2023, breaking the previous U.S. and global record of 12.3 million b/d, set in 2019. Average monthly U.S. crude oil production established a monthly record high in December 2023 at more than 13.3 million b/d.
The crude oil production record in the United States in 2023 is unlikely to be broken in any other country in the near term because no other country has reached production capacity of 13.0 million b/d. Saudi Arabia’s state-owned Saudi Aramco recently scrapped plans to increase production capacity to 13.0 million b/d by 2027.
Together, the United States, Russia, and Saudi Arabia accounted for 40% (32.8 million b/d) of global oil production in 2023. These three countries have produced more oil than any others since 1971 (counting production in the Russian Federation of the Soviet Union prior to 1991), although the top spot has shifted among them over the past five decades. By comparison, the next three largest producing countries—Canada, Iraq, and China—combined produced 13.1 million b/d in 2023, only slightly more than what was produced in the United States alone.
Data source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, International Energy Statistics
After peaking at 9.6 million b/d in 1970, annual U.S. crude oil production flattened and then generally declined for decades to a low of 5.0 million b/d in 2008. Crude oil production in the United States began increasing again in 2009, as producers increasingly applied hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling techniques, and has increased steadily since. The only exception to U.S. production growth since 2009 was in 2020 and 2021, when demand and prices decreased because of the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. In recent years, crude oil production in the Permian Basin (in western Texas and eastern New Mexico) drove the increases in total crude oil and natural gas production in the United States.
Russia was the country with the most crude oil production in 2017, but production growth in Russia has since lagged behind the United States. Average annual production in Russia peaked in 2019 at 10.8 million b/d, when it trailed the United States by 1.4 million b/d. More recently, Russia was among the OPEC+ countries that announced production cuts in November 2022, and in February 2023, it separately announced additional voluntary cuts of 500,000 b/d. Although voluntary cuts have reduced recent production in Russia, we believe sanctions and voluntary actions by companies in response to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine have been the primary cause of the cuts. Actual cuts to production appear to be smaller than anticipated, however, and we estimate that production in Russia declined by only 200,000 b/d in 2023.
Average annual production in Saudi Arabia peaked in 2022 at 10.6 million b/d, which was 1.3 million b/d less than in the United States that year. In 2023, crude oil production in Saudi Arabia declined by about 900,000 b/d because of OPEC+ cuts and further voluntary cuts Saudi Arabia made to offset weaker demand growth. Production in Saudi Arabia could not exceed the 2023 production volume in the United States because state-owned Saudi Aramco’s stated production capacity is 12.0 million b/d, with about 300,000 b/d of additional capacity from its share of the Neutral Zone area shared with Kuwait.
Principal contributor: Erik Kreil
Tags: international, Saudi Arabia, United States, liquid fuels, crude oil, Russia, oil/petroleum, production/supply
The growth in US oil production has come from areas where the Federal government has little or no control over leasing and production…
The Permian Basin
The most prolific oil producing region, the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico, has accounted for the vast majority of the production increase. This has been largely due to improvements in oil recovery from both new and existing wells…
The number of new wells brought on line by drilling activity has historically been the key determinant of whether crude oil production increases or decreases. However, advances in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies have increased well productivity, enabling U.S. producers to extract more crude oil from new wells drilled while maintaining production from legacy wells.
Our Drilling Productivity Report (DPR) shows more production from a combination of increasing new well production and higher sustained legacy well production. We define new well production as crude oil extracted during the first 12 months of production, while legacy production is crude oil extracted after the initial 12 months. The share of legacy production since 2021 has remained stable, and production from new wells has continued.
While virtually all of the Permian Basin of Texas is under private or state lands, where Biden has no control, much of New Mexico’s portion of the Permian Basin is on Federal lands. Democrats at the state and Federal levels have been slowly restricting leasing and drilling in New Mexico:
Decisions by federal and state officials last week will limit where New Mexico’s powerful oil and gas industry is able to drill.
On Friday, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced that the department will soon ban new oil and gas leases on more than 330,000 acres of public lands within a 10-mile radius of Chaco Culture National Historical Park — a UNESCO World Heritage Site of deep cultural importance to the region’s Pueblo and Tribal nations.
The day before, the New Mexico Commissioner of Public Lands instituted a moratorium on new oil and gas leases on state trust lands within one mile of schools, daycare centers, and sporting fields used by students.
Ironically, oil and gas revenues currently account for about 1/3 of the state’s education budget.
Gulf of Mexico
The second most prolific region, the Federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico, has seen no growth in production due to the Biden maladministration’s war on oil & gas leasing, permitting and drilling…
Offshore oil and gas permitting plummets to 2-decade low under Biden
Without stable permitting and leasing, producers may leave for ‘regions with a more predictable regulatory environment,’ industry group says
Published October 12, 2023 11:41am EDT
Offshore oil and gas permitting under President Biden has fallen to a low the energy industry has not experienced since the Bush administration two decades ago, according to federal data reviewed by Fox News Digital.
Since January 2021, when Biden took office, the federal government has approved applications for permit to drill on just 157 new wells, according to the data compiled by Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE). The figure represents a 29% decline compared to the same period under the Trump administration and a 55% decline compared to the same period under the Obama administration.
“Policymakers should leverage the Gulf of Mexico to help meet growing global oil demand,” Erik Milito, the president of the National Ocean Industries Association, told Fox News Digital. “The Gulf of Mexico is a prime example of doing more with less.”
“We were producing more than 2 million barrels of oil per day in the Gulf of Mexico prior to the pandemic, despite the number of active lease blocks being much lower than they were 5, 10, or 15 years ago,” he continued. “We produce a massive amount of energy with a small footprint. However, bottlenecking the permitting process is a surefire way to discourage the success of the region despite growing global demand.”
[…]
The most recent malfeasance was an attempt to essentially halt all future leasing on the shelf edge to protect a fake whale species.
Rice’s whales are primarily located in the yellow and back outlined area in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, an area off-limits to oil & gas exploration. The Biden administration attempted to illegally remove the “Rice’s Whale Expanded Area” (dark blue area on map below) from this, and all future, lease sales.
When Lease Sale 261 was finally held after numerous court orders, it drew the most interest since 2015.
Lease Sale 261 brings in more than $382 million in high bids
Dec. 20, 2023
Lease Sale 261 reported to be the largest oil and gas lease auction since 2015.
Offshore staff
NEW ORLEANS – The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) reports that Lease Sale 261 generated $382,168,507 in high bids for 311 tracts covering 1.7 million acres in federal waters in the US Gulf of Mexico.
BOEM says that a total of 26 companies participated in the lease sale, submitting 352 bids totaling $441,896,332.
Among the winners were Chevron, BP, Shell, Equinor, Repsol, Woodside Energy, Occidental Petroleum, Murphy Oil, Talos Energy, and Kosmos Energy.
[…]
The red blocks indicate leases that drew bids in Sale 261.
While the lamestream media incessantly tries to credit Biden for record US oil production, the fact is that his maladministration has routinely flouted the law in their treasonous war on the US oil & gas industry…
Biden: I Wanted ‘to Stop All Drilling’ on the Coasts and Gulf, Got Blocked by Courts
by IAN HANCHETT 8 Aug 2023
During an interview with The Weather Channel that is set to air on Wednesday, a portion of which aired on Tuesday, President Joe Biden said that he “wanted to stop all drilling on the East Coast and the West Coast and in the Gulf” but was blocked by the courts from doing so.
[…]
Joe fought the law and…
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